Chapter 85: The Kingdom’s BorderAs soon as the massive border wall became visible, Melina and I descended to finish the rest of the way on foot. That way, we wouldn’t alarm any of the knights that were on patrol.

    The knights that were present in the outpost were half of the 7th Knights Order, which had double the amount of people than the 4th Order that had been assigned to our town.

    These were the knights that didn’t accompany their commander to Port Town Blue, and while they had been informed of their new training method, we weren’t sure they knew we would arrive flying.

    As we got closer to the outpost, we were received by a female knight who approached us on horseback.

    "Welcome to the border outpost, princess!" she exclaimed.

    After escorting us to the entrance of their base, we noticed the shabby state of the place.

    They used tents to sleep and the forest around them as the bathroom. There were no buildings of any sort other than the massive wall that cast a shadow on their base.

    If I had to describe their outpost with one word, it would have been "depressing."

    On the side, a knight was cooking some sort of stew on top of a fire pit, and my curiosity got the best of me, so I decided to check what it was.

    However, as I gazed at the stew, it looked absolutely vile and smelled funny.

    "What are you cooking?" I said, covering my nose from the pungent smell.

    The knight looked up. "It’s just a stew we make with the leftovers. Better than throwing them away, right?" he said, smiling slightly.

    ’Uh, no. In this case, it would have definitely been better to throw them away...’ I thought.

    Not knowing what to say, Melina interjected in our conversation.

    "Do you mind if we take it from here?" she asked the knight.

    "A-are you sure, princess? You shouldn’t be cooking for anyone!" the man said.

    But Melina nodded happily and asked him to wait with the others.

    As we both looked at the vile, nasty mix that the knight called a stew, I couldn’t help but notice that it resembled a witch’s cauldron.

    "Is this what they’ve been eating?" Melina asked as she inspected the stew, covering her nose.

    "I guess it’s hard for them to get ingredients delivered often in these parts..." I wondered out loud.

    The princess and I knew what we needed to do. We were only supposed to build a gym for them to train, but that wouldn’t have the desired results if they didn’t have a good diet. If anything, it would just make their lives even harder.

    Lucky for them, we had dozens of edible beasts stocked in our void pockets that only needed some butchering and were ready to cook.

    Pulling out a redback boar, the princess began butchering the beast while I built a better kitchen area for ourselves instead of using the sad firepit.

    The knights stood perplexed as they saw the princess skillfully cutting up the boar into perfect pieces. She finished faster than I thought since I was barely done building and enchanting the kitchen counter.

    After that, we pulled out some fresh vegetables from our void pockets and made a new and improved stew.

    As the knights served their portions, we walked towards their tents and used earth magic to construct a building for them to sleep in.

    Naturally, they couldn’t believe how good the food was and how quickly we managed to build barracks big enough to hold the entire order.

    Thankfully, we had some pillows and sheets stocked in our void pockets, or we would’ve had to call Vespera to bring us some, and we were too far for her to teleport directly.

    The following morning, we built their gym facilities and expanded the barracks. A job that took us a few hours.

    Now that we had completed our primary goal, I wanted to see more of the Illusive Woods that were on the other side of the wall, so Melina and I walked toward the massive gate, which was a few minutes away from the knights camp.

    One of the knights on guard told us he would escort us to the stairs for a better view, but we simply floated up with our ponchos to the top.

    ’Woah...’ I thought as we stared into the expansive, blue-ish forest in front of us.

    The tree leaves were all different shades of blue, the grass was light blue, and even the tree trunks were the same color, with a darker hue.

    "Is this even natural?" I wondered out loud.

    The princess explained that the Illusive Woods was a common forest hundreds of years in the past. However, it seemed that a powerful mage was running away from someone and decided to cast a massive spell on the woods where he hid, making it so that it would confuse his pursuers.

    Eventually, the mage died, and the forest kept its powerful Illusion spell active for centuries.

    It was because of the Illusive Woods that most of the trade that came to the Sephyr Kingdom arrived by port since only some were capable of traveling through the blue-ish forest without getting lost.

    ’I suppose not everyone can just... fly over it...’ I thought as we kept staring into the distance.

    __________

    That same day, after we were done with all of our construction work, we taught the knights how to use the gym facilities and how to cook their meals for their new diet.

    Of course, we left a bunch of ingredients for them since they barely had anything edible in their camp, telling them that we would tell the other knights from their order to bring more resources once they returned from End Town.

    When we were done, we both teleported to the town of Speranza, which was quite far, so we ended up using all of our MP. Not that it mattered since we were going to stay the night there anyways.

    As always, the inn said they didn’t have more than one room available, but it at least had two beds.

    ’Seriously, these guys are doing this on purpose at this point...’ I thought, but we didn’t have another option other than taking it.

    The following day, we went to the adventurers guild to see if there were any new requests posted, and we saw one that instantly caught our attention.

    The request asked for Gold adventurers and higher to help subdue a pack of monsters that were coming out of a cave near the border.

    "We were just around those parts. None of the knights said anything about monsters in a cave, though..." said Melina.

    "I mean, it’s a big border. The cave could be pretty far from them, enough that they wouldn’t even know what is happening." I replied.

    I thought about it, and the main problem of the knights at the border was communication.

    Those guys were basically cut off from the rest of the kingdom, and the only way they had of communicating with the other knights or the king was by sending messenger pigeons, which could take days to arrive at their destination or simply never make it there.

    ’I wonder if I could make phones or something similar for them...’ I thought.

    The good thing is that since we had been at the border before, we could teleport there and save us a few days of travel, although we would still have to locate the cave once we were there.

    We took the request to the clerk and showed our mithril cards, allowing her to share details of the mission with us.

    From what she told us, the cave was near the border and a small village. Apparently, one of the residents found a cave and decided that they should start mining to increase the profits of their settlement.

    However, even though the cave did have lots of materials to be mined, it was also filled with monsters. After the villagers bothered their habitat, these monsters started venturing outside and causing all sorts of trouble.

    "Hmm, it doesn’t sound too bad. Why is it marked for Gold adventurers or higher?" I asked.

    The clerk responded by telling us that most of the monsters that had been sighted were ranked C or above, and although they hadn’t spotted an S-rank yet, they suspected that it could have been hiding deep in the cave. Sear?h the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    Then, the clerk pulled out a map of the kingdom and circled the area where the settlement was located, making us realize that it was quite far from the knights that were stationed on the border.

    "The prize for the request hasn’t been posted yet as we don’t know exactly how dangerous the cave can be, so please be very careful if you decide to explore it." the clerk said.

    Making our way out of the guild, I glanced at the princess, who seemed to be deep in her thoughts as she kept reading the request.

    "So, when are we leaving?" I asked.

    "Ummm, tonight? After lunch?" she responded with another question and a smile.

    "Sounds good to me."